The real issue with Flynn and the Russains is rogue US intelligence agents

The real issue with Michael Flynn's from resignation Homeland Security is not a possible violation of the Login Act (a law that has never been charged). Rather what is emerging as a shadow government made of Obama operatives left behind by Obama when he left office. The idea that rogue intelligence officers working for the US intelligence department forwarded highly sensitive (and a possibly classified conversation) to the press, for the sole purpose of destabilizing a new Presidents Administration, smells of a criminal conspiracy. This is not the same as someone hacking into someones email account by guessing the password. This is US intelligence officers using information gleamed using highly invasive NSA technology to be used for Homeland Security, that is strictly controlled to preserve the peoples constitutional rights (the use of such information requires a court order), for a political assassination.


It is presumed that Flynn was recorded by US intelligence that was monitoring telephone calls to the Russian government. The law as I understand it says, that once the phone call was captured, the intelligence operators must get a court order to continue any investigation becasue it involved a US citizen. However, some rogue US intelligence officer bypassed this constitutional barrier, pretty much doing what Eric Snowden has been convicted of; the release of classified and/or sensitive intelligence information without permission.


As of now only the FBI, Trump and probably the person that leaked it to the press, have a transcript, however, some that have seen the transcript say Obama's sanctions against Russia were mentioned, but not discussed; something along the lines of the Russian saying he wanted to talk about what the Trump Administration was going to do about the Obama sanctions and Flynn told told the Russian that was something he would have to take up with Trump. So it's false news that any law was violated. Where Flynn screwed up is he told Vice President Mike Pence the subject of the sanctions never came up in the phone call with the Russians, resulting in Pence defending Flynn based on Flynn's denials. However  it turned out Flynn lied to Pence (or the very least was not forth coming) and left Pence hanging with his lack of candor. If the Trump Presidency is to succeed, all of his cabinet and advisers have to be on the same page. As a supervisor I often explained that I would do whatever I could to back my officers up when mistakes that are made, as long as they were honest mistakes. But there are two things that are in their best interest; 1) be completely honest (ie don't make me look stupid defending you) and 2) let me hear about it first from you; I don't like surprises. Flynn broke both rules, which pretty much showed him not to be the team player he needed to be and Trump said so much. So the issue was not so much a violation of decorum or even the law, Flynn made Pence look bad as Flynn violated an expected level of trust, so he had to go. 

Obama, a footnote to the Bush Presidency?

It doubt there has ever been a Presidency like Obama’s that has tied itself so closely to another; that being Bush 43. In fact one could say it is a self-inflicted wound that has caused the Obama legacy to be forever in the shadow of Bush 43. Certainly this was not the intention of the Obama administration, but with it’s endless “blame Bush” diatribes, yet the continued comparisons, Obama seems to be less his own president, but a liberal response to Bush 43. One has to wonder how the American left feels when every time the President states a controversial policy, be justifies it by saying that it was no different than what Bush espoused; wasn’t Obama supposed to be different? What really exposes this conundrum is this occurs even when it is not true! The most recent example is Obama and the liberal press, saying that his peace plan for Israel to return to the 1967 borders. The reality was Bush said the opposite, calling the idea “unrealistic”. In the final analysis, the Obama presidency may appear as nothing more than a footnote to that of George W Bush.

As You See It; Obama, the Constitution, George Bush, Fascism and the Party of "No"

Well it was a rousing couple of days responding to the Santa Cruz Sentential "As You See It" response forum. It starts with an printed article of mine (September 2) pared down from a longer blog article titled "Not Quite the Truth"; following are some responses and my follow-up responses. Next on September 4, starts with my responding to a Party of "No" criticism of the Republicans, then bounced around from George Bush, to Constitutional Rights and fascism. This ends with another pared down letter I sent to the Sentential which may or may not be published.

September 2, 2010

Not quite the truth

The red herring being thrown out by the progressive left about the ground zero mosque is that this is all about the First Amendment and religious freedom; this could not be further from the truth. The reason is the Bill of Rights protects the citizenry from government, but does not restrain the citizenry. If we all agree that government has no say about building the mosque, then whatever the citizens say or demonstrate about has no attachment to the Constitution's protection against government intrusion. The citizenry is therefore protected by the First Amendment to protest the mosque; you can't claim one right to the exclusion of another. Thomas Jefferson said, "As long as you don't pick my pocket or kick me in the leg, I don't care what else you do."
Brad *******, Santa Cruz

Bradish wrote:
There is no link to progressives with any of mosque rights or appropriateness. Well, not until Brad admits the sin of professing WMDs resulted in the death and wounding of United States soldiers, as well as many thousands of innocent people. Thanks for personally bankrupting the USA, Brad.

brad responded;
Here again is the Progressive left trying to re-frame the argument. Like all progressives, you try to re-write history to fit your world view. Even without WMD's Iraq had consistently violated UN resolutions for weapons inspections and the decision to go to war was unilateral, including the UN and the vast majority of both sides of Congress. Congress also had all the intelligence information that Bush and Cheney had including Israel, Briton and Egypt. What was later determined was Iraq was in shambles and Saddam Hussein was afraid he was going to be attacked from Iran, which they share a 518k common border (remember they had a little war that lasted 8 years and was fought to a bloody draw). Hussein did not even consider the US would invade, as they did not with Bush41, but that was not the case with Iran. The false information of WMD's in Iraq, was an intelligence operation by Iraq to the purpose of which was to convince Iran not to invade. This is not to say that Cheney and the other Hawks in Washington were not looking for a reason to invade and did not question the universally consistent intelligence which should have been suspect, but it was hardly "Bush lied and people died". If this was true, why did not Cheney and Halleburton go bury some WMD's in the Iraqi desert for the military to find? This would have made Bush the hero. Your progressive narrative just doesn't make sense.

Give me a break responded:
Brad, The constitution binds us all, not just the government. It DOES empower the people to change the constitution, but not to ignore it.
On purpose, it's not easy to change ... otherwise passions of the moment would result in chaos ... the chaos that you are proposing.
I thank the forefathers for having the presence of mind to protect the country from the likes of you. I love America and will defend it from the radicals on either side!

brad responded;
It is a shame you are so ignorant of your own freedoms. The people are constrained by the rule of law, not the Constitutional restrictions from government intrusion. The first Amendment starts with, "Congress will make no law," there is no reference to the restricting the rights of the people. If you believe you have been wronged by the tyranny of the majority, an individual or corporation (if the violation does not raise to the level of a criminal statue), your redress is in Civil court, not the Constitutional constraints of the Federal Government. Please read the Federalist papers written by our founding fathers before you spout out on what the intent of our founding fathers were. Madison imagined a collection of self-governing states held together loosely by Federalism. The Constitution defined the powers and restrictions of this Federal government and it's interaction with the states. It was not until the 14th Amendment that these federal restrictions were transferred to the states (it's still an ongoing process) and Constitutional rights were applied to the citizenry. Regardless, our Constitutional rights protect the citizenry from a tyrannical government and these restrictions were never and have never been applied to the citizenry. The 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." How do you read that the citizenry's right to free speech and peaceably assemble is constrained by freedom of religion? Like I said before, you can't claim one right to the exclusion of the other.

September 4, 2010

Anne Marie Sorcenelli wrote:
The fact that our government is paralyzed by the tea party and the Party of No is unbelievable and unacceptable. The media is monopolized with lies, innuendo and bigoted spiels. I'm tired of being squeezed as a middle-class citizen. Health-care reform doesn't translate to any real protection from predatory practices. My health insurance was increased 40 percent September 2009 and it was increased another 13 percent yesterday. I, and many other self-employed citizens, am having trouble believing that we'll survive this mess. Our state and federal representatives have compensation and medical benefits for life. There's no real incentive to help the middle class except to benefit from their endorsements, campaign contributions and hence, their re-election. We keep hoping for change. Since industry sponsors write bills and our representatives shill them into law, our government has become a servant of industry. Most have lost faith. How do we change this system?

brad responded;
If the President were governing according to the will of the people than any party of "no" would be in the minority. The fact the Republicans popularity numbers are so high, even amongst those that are not aware of the Republicans bills that have been brought forth, can only be explained by the fact that the majority of the citizenry want to stop the Obama Juggernaut at all costs. Nancy Pelosi’s, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” And now Health and Human Services Secretary, Nancy Sebelius saying ,“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,”(As the citizenry discovers the truth and lies of healthcare reform) has made the American people wondering who is actually writing these bills. The President told us what his healthcare plan would look like and later we find out it looks nothing like he said it would, which seems consistent with most his policies and promises and proving the Democrat’s are voting on bills they know nothing about. When at anytime has re-education and re-distribution of wealth became common subjects in the American lexicon and freely discussed using positive rhetoric by the President of the United States? And yes, “The media is monopolized with lies, innuendo and bigoted spiels,” but primarily from the partisan left, which continually tells us to disagree with any left leaning policy is racism. It has become so partisan the many have started to look back at Bush 43 for guidance on how he managed a war against Islamic Terrorism, while using both terms so the world understood where our fight was and still defend the Muslin religion as peaceful and accepting. Before we can reform Washington we need to stop the bleeding, for now that means saying “no” until we can throw the bums out.

Doug Urbanus wrote:
Regarding Bill McCoy's letter, our federal Constitution is a mix of precise rules and abstract moral principles. The minimum age of our representatives is an example of a rule. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment is an expression of abstract moral principle. Justice Elena Kagan in her Senate confirmation testimony considering the authors' intention said, "They didn't mean to constitutionalize all of their practices in 1868. They meant to set forth a principle of equality that would be applied over time." No matter one's politics, how the abstract moral clauses should be applied is a matter of interpretation. To complain that enacting a law to establish health insurance or indeed any law is constitutionally impermissible because it is not explicitly etched in the Constitution, reduces the Constitution to a document of dos and don'ts. Fortunately, even textualists, such as Justice Scalia, reject such a view.

brad responded;
What a bunch of Progressive pulp. Read the 10th Amendment carefully. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As much as you want to talk about the Constitution as a living, breathing document, it is nothing of the kind. It is a legal document whose precepts are to be used to weigh the formulation of new laws. The concept that Congress can force the citizenry, for the “privilege,” of living in the United States, to buy a private service is by definition fascist. The overreaching of an activist court’s use of Commerce clause, has allowed the federal government to influence practically every aspect of our lives, which is consistent with Hilaire Belloc, “The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” The Healthcare reform bill has now been declared a tax in the federal court cases now being heard in the various states that oppose it, because it would have been unconstitutional otherwise; but what tax demands that the citizenry again buy a private service (and note here that auto insurance is an aspect of the privilege to drive, not the right of federal residency). The Constitutional is not a document of Do’s and Don’ts; it is a document of the rights of the individual and restrictions on the Federal Government. The 9th Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” or the people have more rights than have been expressed in the Constitution, while the 10th Amendment says the only powers the Federal Government has are those specifically given by the Constitution and all other rights and powers are with the people. Nothing could be clearer.

rebel wrote:
Two years! That should have been plenty of time to fix all the problems generated by the abuse of the last eight! Those lazy democrats!

brad responded;
I'm still waiting to hear what we need to change that occurred during the 8 years of Bush. Is it deficits and debt? No way. Is it more regulation for Fannie and Freddie, nope, not in the Frank/ Dodd financial reform bill. Oh I know, it's the sub prime mortgages derivatives; nope still there. Is it ending a politically controlled war? Certainly not. Hey what about that nasty Patriot Act? no, still there. Oh, Oh, is it political corruption? Yeah, right.. How about the government right to assassinate American citizens any where in the world without a trail? Actually that is an Obama policy, even Bush didn't go that far. Maybe it's the sky high CEO wages and bonuses? no, pretty much the same . How about transparency and honesty in government, that's really all we want; no, still wanting. I've got it! It's 7% unemployment; that nasty President Bush just didn't care about the little guy. The truth is Presidents come and go but the entrenched policies of greed and corruption rarely change, and certainly not with Obama.

Government responded:
Brad said "The concept that Congress can force the citizenry, for the “privilege,” of living in the United States, to buy a private service is the definition of fascism. "
I don't think Brad has studied fascist governments, let alone ever lived under one. In my view, in the 20th century fascism rose in countries where the empowered few felt truly threatened by a coming revolutionary change in the power structure of their countries; and to turn back this change (socialism) they harnessed and promoted popular discontent and channeled it into powerful government/corporate alliance that, once entrenched, completely disempowered the individuals that they had harnessed to support it.
One can certainly dislike the idea that one might be required to buy private insurance - one can argue its propriety (or even its constitutionality) but tying it to "fascism" is so out of the blue!!!!!
Wacky!

brad responded;
If this is truly your understanding of fascism, then this forum does not allow enough room to explain what little you know about it (sorry, but your progressive revisionist history about the rise of fascism is frustrating. In Italy the Socialist refused to take power after 1920 "occupation of the factories" by the workers, for fear they would not be able to fulfill their Utopian promises in the post war chaos; this left the door open for Mussolini's Fascist party to take control two years later); 20th Century fascism was the revolutionary change, supposedly resulting from failed lassie fare Capitalism and a refusal of the Socialist to take power. Mussolini described his form of fascism as corporate government;it is a form of government that swallows up labor unions and any other impediments to production and creates state sponsored industries. Fascism is government run like a corporation where the economy is planned and truth is relative to the State’s perceived needs of the collective. Ron Paul has rightly described Obama as a corporatist. FDR had a fascination with fascism and particularly an admiration for Mussolini. “Comparisons are drawn between the cartelisation of Italian industry by Mussolini and the 'cartelisation' of American industry by Roosevelt under the National Recovery Act. Most fascist governments adopted economic policies favorable to big business”(Wiki); tell me how this is not the same as Obama's taking control of 2/3 of the American auto industry. There is also his back room deals with Big Pharma, Healthcare insurance companies and Medicare providers. In no other form of government besides fascism do you have forced consumption from a private entity; in socialism these entities are the government (they only exception to this was a short period of time under Lenin when he embraced a more corporate view until all industry was eventually nationalized; this blending of Marxism and fascism is sometimes referred to as neo-Leninism). The Healthcare reform system creates a defacto collective, under the guise of equal care and the elimination of competitiveness. In regards to your original concept that fascism was a reaction to socialism and not a form of socialism, I’ll leave you with the words of F. A. Hayek, “There is a great deal of truth that in the often heard statement that fascism and National Socialism are a sort of middle-class socialism- only that in Italy and Germany the supporters of these new movements were hardly in the middle class any longer. It was to a large extent a revolt of the new underprivileged class against the labor aristocracy, which the industrial labor movement had created.”

brad wrote:
If the President were governing according to the will of the people than any party of "no" would be in the minority.

uh Clem responded
Exactly. The "Party of No" will be the Party of November

You belcha responded:
right after you produce them WMDs.

brad responded;
We found the WMDs, apparently they were hiding in Obama's stimulus plan.

Letter to the Editor

Where are the Bridges and Dams?

What ever happened to the Presidents stimulus plan? You know the plan that was going to fund those shovel ready projects. Well, it turned out the stimulus wasn’t really a stimulus at all. Rather the stimulus was written by the ultra-left Apollo Alliance (a project of George Soros’ Tides Center, with Van Jones on the steering committee) to fund those areas of the economy that met with their political agenda. Even Paul Krugman had to agree, “..for all the talk of a failed stimulus, if you look at government spending as a whole you see hardly any stimulus at all.” No bridges, no dams, no highways and no jobs; apparently it was more important for the Apollo Alliance to fund its progressive agenda, than to create jobs and improve the economy, which makes this the coming attraction for Cap and Trade.

White House Fraud Risks More Well Explosions

The President’s ideology has become crystal clear, with his moratorium of deep water drilling in the gulf; not just future drilling permits, but current drilling. The Wall Street Journal (Crude Politics ) wrote: "All this is even before raising ban’s economic consequences, which already threaten tens of thousands of jobs. This is why Louisiana politicians are now pleading with the Administration to back off a ban that is sending the Gulf’s biggest industry to its grave." But there is something else here; something devious and exceedingly deceptive and/or dangerous. “Prior to issuing the moratorium, the White House consulted a panel of experts. According to the President, these experts agreed that a moratorium was a good idea and was outlined in his Oval Office speech. However, when the Wall Street Journal contacted some of these experts and it turns out that’s not what they said at all. The experts said they agreed a moratorium for new drilling permits was a good idea, not current drilling. One of the experts said, “Because if anybody had [made that suggestion], we’d have said ‘that’s craziness.’” Why would it be craziness? The WSL continued, "A big reason why those experts would have balked is because they recognize that the moratorium is indeed a threat to safety… The ban requires oil companies to abandon uncompleted wells. The process of discontinuing a well, and then later re-entering it, introduces unnecessary risk. He notes BP was in the process of abandoning its well when the blowout happened."

The White House Panel of experts said they had signed on to a document that said one thing and the White House added two paragraphs without their knowledge or consent, changing the scope of the moratorium. This is the morale equivalent to a judge signing a search warrant, then the police adding a few more things they want to search for and forging the judges name to it; it's called fraud. To make matters worse, the tactic of shutting down and capping the existing 33 deep-water wells, could result in more another deep-water spills. The very reason for the moratorium is to study what went wrong with capping the wells, yet the moratorium will force BP to re-create the conditions, 33 more times, that lead to the current spill.

The President is again, hoping his ideology will not blowup in the country’s face and make matters worse; much worse in the Gulf. After the BP deepwater well exploded, spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, the President balked. Unlike the “trust but verify” tactics of Ronald Reagan, the President took the word of BP that no help was needed without any confirmation and went off to play golf. This is not to say that BP was up to something sinister. The fact is that corporations have a different world view than governments. What are acceptable risks to business, may not be acceptable in areas of national security. Life border security, this is an area were the federal government is supposed to take charge, and where the Obama Administration continues to fail. Once it was obvious that BP was in over it’s head, Obama maintained that it was still up to BP to stop the leak and keep the oil off the beaches. BP has acknowledged that they spent more of their resources making sure no deep-water calamity would occur and not planning what would be necessary if a spill actually happened. During this time oil experts from around the world offered assistance with clean-up technology, but the President has turned it down, refusing to suspend something called the Jones Act, that protects the unions, by not letting foreign ships into American waters; he still has not done so.

As I said before, he should let BP worry about the spewing broken wellhead, but muster the world’s resources to stop the oil from reaching the beaches. Instead he has spent all his energy on the blame game and assuring BP is going to pay for the destruction of the Gulf. Never mind that a coordinated effort using all available technology and tactics could mitigate the damage and help keep the beaches safe. Nature will take care of most the oil in the water, but it will take decades or longer to get the oil out of the beaches. Wouldn’t it be better to protect the beaches now and worry about who is going to pay for it later? But the ideology of the President is based primarily on vilification, not problem solving.

Does the President really not know what he’s doing? I don’t know, perhaps no one knows. But he's throwing the dice again and hoping they won't turn up snake eyes. If they do, the American people will once again have to cover his bets once again.

Print Page

When Freedom of Speech Gets in the Way

Once again we find the democrats and this time President Obama's dislike of free speech, when it's from the Tea Party and/or conservative media and comes on the tail of remarks by ex-President Clinton. Clinton seemed to be referring about Tea Party talking points, when he wrote in a NYT op-ed piece, "Fifteen years ago, the line was crossed in Oklahoma City. In the current climate, with so many threats against the president, members of Congress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of Oklahoma City, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross it again."( NYT April 18, 2010). This was preceded by, “I don't want something bad to happen to get this thing right again”, (CNN Situation Room April 17, 1010); the later quote sounding too much like a Chicago gangster, “You wouldn't want anything bad to happen again; Know whatimean? botaboom”.

Now we have President Obama with this commencement speech statement, “But what troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad. ... For when our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it conveniently ignores the fact in our democracy, government is us.” President Obama (Michigan Graduation, April 30 2010). Now this statement may not sound exceeding provocative , but it takes on a completely different tone if one is aware that the day before Rush Limbaugh on his radio show, referred to the Obama Administration as a “foreign entity” that was trying to take over the country; it would seem the entire commencement speech was a response to being criticized on the radio! It also brings to mind, that after 8 years of a President Bush, who almost never responded to negative press, we now have a President who is so unsure of himself, he feels he must rebuke the press for every slight. During the same commencement speech, the President qualified his attacks on free speech with these platitudes, “Of course, there have always been those who've opposed such efforts. They argue that government intervention is usually inefficient; that it restricts individual freedom and dampens individual initiative. And in certain instances, that's been true”, as if he is really listening the concerns of the American people. Finally he tries to shut down debate with, “the truth is, the debate we've had for decades between more government and less government doesn't really fit the times in which we live". What? Of course that debate fits our times. In a truly open society, no argument is final and no science is settled; to deny this is the propaganda tool of tyrants.

The President finished this line of thought with," We know that too much government can stifle competition, deprive us of choice, and burden us with debt. But we've also seen clearly the dangers of too little government - like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our entire economy”. So if the debate on the size of government is over, must we now accept a future of big government, stifled competition, deprivation of choice and the burden of crushing debt? And what about governmental accountability? What about Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, whose backing of NINJO home sales and sub-prime mortgages, prompted Wall Street to create the financial instruments they used to implode the economy?

If you believe the saying, “Dissent the highest form of Patriotism”* (mis-attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but actually the words of a liberal progressive, Howard Zinn), then we must add an asterisk for the sake of the lost integrity of the left.

*”Unless we're in power, than it's un-American, racists and a prelude to terrorism”.

Obama and Neo-Leninism

The conservative pundits on Fox news and other conservative media has labeled Obama’s policies as Socialist and Marxist in nature. Even my blogs has likened Obama’s agenda, which is without doubt driven by a redistribution of wealth, as Marxists. I have also spent many words explaining how Obama’s movement toward socialism, is closer to what Ron Paul called “corporatist”, i.e fascism. However, neither Marxism nor fascism is really an accurate description of the Obama agenda. While the re-distribution of wealth is consistent with Marxism, Marx’s agrarian end game is totally inconsistent with Obama’s corporatism. Marx believed that the true evil was industry and capitalism. He therefore saw the purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat was to move society back to its agrarian roots. This was the reasoning of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who forced the entire population out of the cities of Cambodia to force an agrarian society on the people; the result of course was the death of 25% of the population. One could make an argument that Obama’s agenda using environmentalism has continued de-industrializing of America, but his corporatism is entirely inconsistent with an agrarian society. Hence we need to look somewhere else to better define Obama’s agenda.


Many of my prior posts have been defining Obama's and the Democrats current policies as fascist. However there is a difference however between historic fascism and Obama’s corporatism and are significant enough to be in want of another defining principle other than fascism. Obama’s corporatism has been an exercise in sleight of hand. The best example was the Healthcare bill (now the law), where Obama continually made back room deals guaranteeing the Healthcare industry healthy profits while simultaneously demonizing the same industries publicly. Obama and the Democrats have embraced the “ends and means” tactics that many on the right have labeled Saul Alinsky like. There is much truth in this, as Obama taught the Saul Alinky’s Neighborhood Organizing principles in college. Obama and his cohorts learned to do their homework and find out what the current populist views are, then use the terms to describe their policies, regardless of the true intent. A good example of this was the House “Cap and Trade” bill, that Nancy Pelosi defined as a “Jobs, jobs, jobs”, when the bill was actually a tax on energy use. There is a problem with this Machiavellian tactic however as Martin Luther King Jr said, “This is where the non-violent movement would break with communism, or any other systems that argues that the end justifies the means because in the long run of history the ends is pre-existing with the means.” While this re-direction is no stranger to fascism, the demonization of corporations does not fit and places Obama squarely in the camp of Neo-Leninism.


In many ways, Lenin is the real father of the progressive left (I guess that makes Karl Marx the grandfather). Although Lenin believed in the workers struggle and the need for the re-distribution of wealth, he was also pragmatic. Lenin established a fascist style leadership for industrial enterprises to boost production and worker expertise. But more than this, he did not believe that the workers would develop a socialist consciousness on their own. He believed this would necessitate an “organization of professional revolutionaries” to lead the working class. These professional revolutionaries would lecture and create slogans, banners or whatever media that was necessary to lead the working class; these professionals were termed the Intelligentsia. The Intelligentsia is defined as a social class of people engaged in complex mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them (e.g., artists and school teachers). As Neo-Leninism evolved in America, the Progressive Left is firmly in the camp that believe people in general don’t know what is good for them and need to be guided in the right direction. There is no better example of this than Cass Sunstien, President Obama's Czar of White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.From my blog Cass Sunstein: Obama’s Truth Czar",


As a scholar, Sunstien is known for believing that “people” (not him of course) as a rule make bad decisions, so they need government to “nudge” them in the right direction, this includes all areas of their lives, such as“ education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, (and) happiness..”; yes happiness, government knows better than you, what direction you need to be nudged to be happy. Sunstien also believes there are problems with the concept of freedom of speech. Sunstien believes that citizens with mutual interests, should not exchange ideas as “like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another.” Sunstien basically believes that the government needs to control the information you hear and that he “doubt(s) whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals”.


As I noted before, those that view themselves as the Intelligentsia define themselves as a superior class. Their task is to oversee the betterment of the ignorant workers class. Their goal is to create and maintain a Neo-Leninist government that will be there to control the expanding rolls of the ignorant class that makes poor life decisions and can not take care of themselves. The Intelligentsia needs this undeveloped class to mentor and protect, as it defines paradigm of their existence. This makes for a contentious argument with those that believe that all men are created equal and have the right to determine their own destiny, since after all, that is the job of government, and the life blood of the Intelligentsia.

The Underwear Bomber Follies; ...and the Party Never Ends

One of they key talking points of the Obama Presidential campaign was to do away with the Bush interrogation strategies, including the use of so called cohesive interrogation techniques (call it what you want, water boarding is a from of torture and torture works; one should make a decision on those grounds). After President Obama took office, starting in Aug 2009, he directed the establishment of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), which was intended to replace the Bush Administration's intelligence-gathering procedures for captured terrorist suspects. The opportunity to use HIG presented itself, a year later with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's (the underwear bomber) failed attempt to bring down a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day. What actually happened was a farce so outlandish, it would rival a Pink Panther movie with Eric Holder, US Attorney General as Inspector Hol-der', ala Clouseau'.

The first problem that cropped up is, who is in charge? The root of this is the Presidents inability to not only define terrorist, or to even define what terrorism is. Janet Napolitano called terrorists creators of man-made disasters. President Obama twisted belief that Islamic terrorism is a result of oppressive poverty. The reality is Islamic terrorists come from all socioeconomic backgrounds. In the Washington Post article, “5 Myths About Who Becomes a Terrorists”, Jessica Stern completely debunks President Obama's flawed worldview. “The reasons that some people become terrorists are as varied as the reasons that others choose conventional professions: market conditions, social networks, contact with recruiters, education and individual preferences. And just as the passion for justice that may animate a young law student is not necessarily what keeps him working long hours at a law firm while hoping to make partner, a terrorist's motivations for staying with his cause can also change”. It's as simple as this, is a terrorists a criminal or an enemy combatants. At least with President Bush everyone knew the US considered terrorists as enemy soldiers, most guilty of crimed against humanity.

First we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (let's just call him Umar), somehow getting by Amsterdam's Airport security. After talk of a “sharped dress man”, first he didn't have a passport, then he did, then he didn't, it turned out Umar “was” being watched by the CIA, and he was let onto the plane, so they could follow him to a identify his Al Qaeda “higher up”; oops! Once the bomb fizzled and burned, Umar was arrested and taken into custody at Ohare Int Airport by the FBI and Inspector Hol-der', the FBI's prosecutor So what happens next? Does Hol-der' talk with Napolitano, Head of Homeland Security (and the TST)? No. Does he discuss options with Dennis Blair, the Director of Homeland Security, who mans the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group? No. Does he ask Michael Leiter, the head of the National Counter Terrorism Center? No. Instead, he sends in cold (no background information) and FBI interrogator, who talks with Umar for 50 minutes, calls it good and Miandizes him. 50 Minutes! Robert Gibbs, the White House Press secretary said, "Well, FBI interrogators believe they got valuable intelligence and were able to get all that they could out of him,"

I will never forget the congressional hearing where Napolitano, Blair and Leiter were sitting together at a table at Congressional Hearing, Sen. Susan Collins, the panel’s ranking Republican: “Were you consulted regarding the decision to file criminal charges ... in civilian court?” They all looked at each other and one at a time they said, Nope, Not me, Uh-Ah (okay the really said “I was not”). When Blair was asked about the use of the HIG, he said, “"That unit was created exactly for this purpose," Blair told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have." Blair had to later clarify his remarks and admit the HIG was not yet operational! Further, Blair said it never dawned on them that the HIG would be used on a suspect arrested on US soil. Huh?

THEN!...Then!...then. The piece de resistance; the pinnacle of naiveté and self serving idiocy. As Inspector Hol-der' and the other national security heads are looking for a desk to hide under, Sen Diane Fienstein comes to their supposed rescue and announces the the world, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is talking again. With those few words, any information that was of any value was compromised. At the very least, Inspector's Hol-der's' incompetence seemed to have had the usual Clouseau success, until the information was leaked. I know know there is no intelligence left in Washington, but I know there are US spooks somewhere in this country, who are sitting at their desks, elbows on the top, forehead cradled in their hands and slowly rocking their heads back and forth; sorry man.

There's more, but this is the jest. Again, the way Bush looked at this was, since 911, the US was at war with terrorists. Any terrorists captured were prisoners of war; that's what Guantanamo Bay was, a POW camp. Remember all those WWII films. Do you try prisoners of war in a civilian court? or do you hold them until the war is over? Granted, there are some POW's that have committed crimes against humanity ala Nurenburg; in those cases you have a military tribunal and try them. Inspector Hol-der' is also attempting to try the 911 arrested terrorists in a civilian court in New York. In a court system that has a Constituional guarantee that you are innocent until proven guilty, President Obama has said, of 911 suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he is convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." and Sen. Patrick Leahy said, "He's going to be convicted - that's the important thing. We show the world that our judicial system works."
In other words he will have a fair trail and then he will be shot. Is this the example the senator wants to show the world on, not only the strength but the fairness of our courts? AND KNOW!; And Know! And know, after months of jabbering, political pressure seems to be sufficient to reverse Inspector Hol-der' and try the 911 suspects with a military tribunal. There is a god, he doesn't like terrorist and apparently doesn't think much of incompetent prosecutors either.

As a final caveat, what seems to be lost in all this, is that the information we can extract from Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is much more important then prosecuting him. The idea that all Inspector Hol-der' could think about was a successful court case, shows the Obama Administration really doesn't care; they really don't care. The proper response to the underwear bomber publicly should have been very little. Just like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The underwear bomber should have disappeared of the face of the earth for a while. No, I don't mean torture him. I mean take a couple of months and extract every bit of information, useful or not, out of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Then once your done, you figure out what you are going to do about him. This is not supposed to be about a posturing President and his Attorney general, it's about keeping American citizens safe. Remember us?

America Prepares For Fascisim

I have written several articles about fascism and have explained how certain policies could result in a fascist America. The intent of this blog is to specifically list President Obama's policies and congressional bills and how they will lead to a fascist state. Over the next months and years you will hear terms like socialized capitalism, and social justice; these are just euphemisms used by Progressives for fascism. To better understand you also need to keep in mind that the Progressive agenda is based on Marxism. If there is one term that is synonymous with both Progressivism and Marxism it is science. Progressive strongly believe that the collective is unable to make informed and critical decisions, so the state must make these decisions for them. Current Intellectuals like Cass Sunstein (an Obama Czar) stress incrementalism or to nudge the citizenry in the right direction in all areas including, " education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, (and) happiness..”. Again, since the beliefs and policies of the Progressive movement is thought to be rooted in science, they are freed from any morality or value system to carry out their plans for utopia and socialism.

Control of business and unions.

1. President Obama took over GM and Chrysler and handed then over to the unions; 17.5% GM and 65% Chrysler. Both are being run by CEO's installed by the Federal Government. It is not hard to imagine a scenario where the government will continue to team up with the unions and and extend hegemony over all unionized business in the US. In fascism the government creates a commission to address all union matters and decide issues; the commissions decisions are final and not negotiable.

2. One of President Obama's agenda items is called “guaranteed income stream” of a Federal Guaranteed Return Annuity. These are mandatory retirement accounts, were a portion of your retirement will be placed in an account backed by US Treasury Bonds. Then when you retire, you will receive a fixed amount for life. The reason for this is diabolical. There is close to $10 trillion out there in private and public retirement and pension funds in the US. The way the US pays for it's debt is to sell treasury bonds (i.e. Savings Bonds). So, the Federal Government is going to force the citizenry to buy it's debt. The original plan is to mandate 15% of your retirement funds must go into this government annuity, but one suspects this will grow. As Duke in the Doonebarry comic strip once said, “Besides, the pension fund was just sitting there” .

3. In the area of Cap and Trade, it appears the Senate will not produce a bill any time soon, but that has not stopped the President.. On Dec 9, 2009 Environmental Protection Agency officials said that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide endanger people's health. Using this “endangerment finding”, the EPA overcame a hurtle placed by the US Supreme Court before it could regulate C02. In a move out of the fascist play book, the President has directed the EPA to bypass Congress and strong arm cities into investing in Cap and Trade; a scheme that will bring all business under federal control and cost the country tax payers $500 billion @ year conservatively. This area of fascism also demonstrates the use of science which is typical of socialism. It is surprising how quickly intellectuals and scientist jump on the band wagon to scientifically prove aspects of a planned society and fascism. Everything from Eugenics to fascism being the inevitable result of evolved capitalism and the free market, was shown to be scientifically proven in Germany and Italy. The idea that science is somehow more objective and immune from the political pressures of social and economic planners is a pit we continue to where we continually fall; even to this day.
   

The end result is the state being in complete control of the means of production. One of the keys to fascism is controlled capitalism, where the state is responsible for remove any and all impediments. With elimination of trade unions and class conflict, industry is free to explore any avenue of production without being hindered. Add to this the government being in complete control of retirement and pension funds, the workers will be beholding to the State for every aspect of his employment. President Obama's end around on Cap and Trade is reminiscent of FDR. Much like Rahn Emanuels, "Never let a crisis go to waste", FDR pushed through the NRA that was a fascist take over of industry in the US.

Control of the Banking system

1. As a result of the TARP buy out, the US Treasury silently included what is referred to as an “explicit guarantee”. Meaning the Treasury will back the banks to the tune of $27.3 trillion for any future debts they may incur; with this extent of this pending liability, the government should have unfettered influence on the banks.

Our current banking system with the Federal Reserve has the framework of fascism already in place; someone would say the Federal Reserve is already an operating fascist entity. With fascism in place, all semblance of an independent banking system will disappear and the banks will simply become an annex of the government and every aspect of the economics of the state will be planned and controlled.

Media and Information control

1. Seemingly without any prodding the main stream media, with the exception of Fox news have been biased toward President Obama at a scale never seen before. Further, with Cass Sustein, the Information and Regulatory Czar, we have an ideologue who appears to accept the extremest Constitutional theory the First Amendment was meant for politicians in Congress and not the American citizens . He has written a now infamous white paper calling for censorship of any individual or group stating he, “doubt(s) whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals”.

2. The Federal Cybersecurity Act of 2009 is on it's way to becoming law and has prescribed (from Mother Jones) new Presidential powers to shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." Further, the bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

Thomas Jefferson said "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." That is why all tyrannical governments always target radio and TV stations. It has been said that Stalin and Hitler, "were dictators in favor of freedom of speech for views they liked only". Unfortunately censorship can be self imposed, proving there is no difference between censorship at the barrel of a gun or the result of a closed mind. As fascism takes control, the press will be attacking straw man enemies, while the State will always be presented in a manner favorably to the State. It will be media's job to present fascism as the personification of the needs and love of the people; Mussolini "For us the nation is not just territory but something spiritual... A nation is great when it translates into reality the force of its spirit".

The End of Individualism

1. In order for fascism to take hold, collectivism must replace Individualism. Of all the freedoms in our current society, this will be the most problematic. The avenue of choice here by the Progressives appear to be healthcare. The current healthcare reforms are specifically designed to devalue individualism. The goal has always been single payer, where the government controls the health needs of all citizens; even the so called public option, was simply designed to create a incremental step toward single payer, where none existed before. Once single payer is initiated, the American will have surrendered their individualism and joined the collective. Care will be dolled out and rationed according to the individual value to the state; the plan also includes the government having access to banking accounts and medical records. As with all collective healthcare systems, the higher quality of care must be reduced to accommodate greater demand on the system. The collective citizen's health, diet, exercise and general quality of life will be dictated by the benevolent State, that is supposedly unbiased toward the betterment and health of the State , of which the collective is part.
   

In a collective society, the State defines the value system. In fascism, the State is able to end class conflict by cementing the individual into their class. As opposed to a workers revolution, fascism is more often supported by the middle class, that fears a loss of it's status in a crisis. In the long run, fascism attempts to creates a stable government, where class position in society is secure and permanent. Your value as a person is your value to the State; to each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.

I did not create a separate heading for indoctrination, as the Progressives have been in charge of education since their inception, and tacit revisionist history is already pervasive. In order for a society born of individualism to become a collective, the Progressives have re-written history to down play the positives effects of individual freedom and liberty, which has made the American people the most prosperous people in history. The interjection of Progressive policies especially in the 20th century has been an object failure, so in a form of historical misdirection, the Progressive educational system attempts to take credit for the blessings of liberty and freedom. Cass Sustein presents this Orwellian worldview best when he says, "There is no liberty without dependency”.

Pres Obama, America Already Knows it's Core Values

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“And, you know, If there's one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values. And that I do think is a mistake of mine. I think the assumption was, if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on the, you know this provision, or that law, or are we making a good, rational decision here --” President Obama

What are our core values? The question is fraught with esoteric rhetoric. The truth is, every person has a unique collection of elements that make up their personal core values. I'm not going to spend any time on the importance of one value over another or what values lead to successful moral life. What I am going to spend a little time on is, what I see are the unique core values of the American psyche. Simply stated personal values are those behaviours and world views that one gives a higher level of worth (or value). “Personal core values are at the very core of your being. They are the values you hold closest to your heart, the values that resonate most completely with your soul”. However there are also cultural core values. In the United States, we as Americans have some very unique core values. Interestingly enough, many of these core values come from our form of government. In no other country, does government play so intrinsic a role in core values, as in the United States. A definition of cultural core values is, a basic framework you can use to understand, analyse simple beliefs, or rules about what a culture represents and how it solves problems. The first part of this definition is striking, because few nations really care what their culture represents, but in the US, we have been raised with the idea that we are the bastion of Democracy and in some corners, the “United States is the last best hope for the preservation of freedom and liberty throughout the world”.

Ask an American what it means to be an American and he will tell you it's about living in a free country. This is what sets us aside from the rest of the world; we define ourselves not by the fact we were born here, not by our language or love of Queen, but by a form of government that guarantees freedom. Back to my definition of cultural core values; so what are the rules that defines what our culture represents? The rules are enumerated as inalienable rights due all people, guaranteed to American citizens and protected by the United States Constitution; inalienable are rights given, not by a king, not by a government, but by our creator. Finally, the cultural core value definition includes how a culture solves its problems. All this talk of freedom and liberty are hollow words, unless the culture determines how its decisions are made. Do we allow dissenters to burn flags, allow hate speech, and free criminals because of government misconduct? Or, do we not turn our backs on tyranny and genocide throughout that world? Cultural problem solving is a measure of honesty and integrity, which in the final analysis is a determination of the maturity of a culture.

These are the core values of the American people, so when you hear what President Obama said at the beginning of this blog, all Americans should pause for a moment to realize what he is actually saying; particularly, “..I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are”. Here you actually have the President of the United States regretting that he was negligent in the progressive necessity of redefining the core values of the American People. President Obama could have said, he regretted not speaking directly “with” the American people about what their core values are, but what he said was, not “speaking directly 'to' the American people". The first is a fact finding mission and the latter is indoctrination. It might be enlightening that President Obama gave over 400 speeches last year; that's more than one speech a day! One has to wonder, how many speeches he would have given if he hadn't been “just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us”.

I'll leave you with this; if the President and the Democrats were legislating reforms that conform with American core values, then it would not have been necessary for him to try and redefine them; American core values come from the bottom, up not the top down. We have the Declaration Of Independence, that defines that freedom and liberty comes from a power greater than man and a Constitution that protects and defends these rights, we don't need the progressive relativism that the President is trying to force on this country. The progressives are not the first to try and rob the American people of their liberty for a promise of safety or in this case, entitlement. We have all seen it before and it has been said over and over,“We don't want what you're are selling”.

Cass Sunstein: Obama's Truth Czar

Cass Sunstien is President Obama's Czar of White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. As a scholar, Sunstien is known for believing that “people” (not him of course) as a rule make bad decisions, so they need government to “nudge” them in the right direction, this includes all areas of their lives, such as“ education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, (and) happiness..”; yes happiness, government knows better than you, what direction you need to be nudged to be happy. Sunstien also believes there are problems with the concept of freedom of speech. Sunstien believes that citizens with mutual interests, should not exchange ideas as “like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another.” Sunstien basically believes that the government needs to control the information you hear and that he “doubt(s) whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals”.

The following is another example; "conspiracy theories are a subset of the large category of false beliefs, and also of the somewhat smaller category of beliefs that are both false and harmful. Consider, for example, the beliefs that prolonged exposure to sunlight is actually healthy and that climate change is neither occurring nor likely to occur. These beliefs are (in our view) both false and dangerous, but as stated, they do not depend on, or posit, any kind of conspiracy theory. We shall see that the mechanisms that account for conspiracy theories overlap with those that account for false and dangerous beliefs of all sorts, including those that fuel anger and hatred". Here, Sunstein seems to be insisting that one plus one equals three, and if you don't agree, you have dangerous beliefs. Why someone would write that prolonged exposure to the sun is a problem belief (it isn't) or that anyone denies that climate changes (they don't), shows that government defining a belief they determine both false and harmful, is completely arbitrary.

Sunstien further says the Constitution is a hindrance to his ideology and belief that, “There is no liberty without dependency”. Let me say that again, “There is no liberty without dependency”. No one with this belief belongs anywhere near the President of the United States. The only way it could happen, is if the President believes it also. Now, the reason I say this, is because President Obama was a Constitutional scholar and views the Constitution flawed; he stated, “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf”. Here, Pres Obama is being intellectually dishonest because, the Constitutional is nothing near a “charter of negative liberties”, unless you believe that “there is no Liberty without dependency”. The only true “negative liberties” in the Constitution are the protections it gives us from a tyrannical government.

Sunstein has said, “If government could not intervene effectively, none of the individual rights to which Americans have become accustomed could be reliably protected”. In other words, only the government can protect your freedom and liberty and; “Without taxes, there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the fisc (services supported by taxes) ”. What Sunstein and the President seem to be ignoring is that the American citizenry have tasked government to protect us. We should be as dependent on government as a business owner is dependent on an employee. But, for this to have any meaning, than the American people need to have the ability to protect itself without government, this is specifically why our founding fathers guaranteed citizens the right to bare arms. To allow any politician to say we need to protect our Second Amendments rights by allowing firearms for sport and hunting, completely mis-states the meaning of the Constitution. It's pretty clear, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”. Our founding fathers wanted us to have firearms to protect ourselves and the liberty guaranteed in the Constitution. The meaning of Militia is an army made up of citizenry, not trained soldiers. There is no reason why any sane and law abiding citizen should not have access to a military rifle and be part of a local militia.

Sunstein's war on the First Amendment is particularly extreme against conspiracy theorists. Sunstein believes that conspiracy theorists are dangerous, “and raise significant challenges for policy and law”. He defines "extreme conspiracy theories" to include, " the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy; that doctors deliberately manufactured the AIDS virus, ; that the 1996 crash of TWA was caused by a US military missile; (or) that the theory of Global Warming is a deliberate fraud”. Oops, well I guess 3 out of 4 ain't bad; apparently he wrote this before the hacked emails showed some “deliberate fraud” going on with amongst the Global Warming scientists. There's a problem defining what is appropriate for the American citizen to believe; the government may just wind up being wrong, usually is, and many times the censoring is deliberate; it's called fascism.

Since, as I explained before, Sunstein believes the idea that , “like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another”, is bad and does not serve “democratic goals”, then this kind of free exchange of ideas needs to be subverted by the government. Sunstein's method for this is called, “Cognitive Infiltration”; defined as not just the “1960s-style of infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information” but rather, “breaking up the ideological and epistemological complexes that constitute these networks and groups.” Does this sound like an America you want to live in? Sunstein explains his plan in detail, “Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real space groups and try to undermine percolating conspiracy theories.” If you haven't figured this out yet, what Sunstein is talking about is using the tactics the FBI used in the 50's and 60's to undermine the communist party, the civil rights movement and anti-war demonstrators. There was evidence that the agents not only infiltrated these groups, but helped to increase their radicalization and incite them to escalate their levels of violence. It was illegal then and it is illegal now; and again it is the definition of fascism.

But Sunstein is an intellectual and a scholar, I'm sure these ideas and concepts were written decades ago, and he was dealing with the purely theoretical; yes this was written all the way back in 2008. The only way we can protect ourselves from those who want to destroy our country is to stay informed, get involved, vote for representatives that believe them same as you, and continue to exercise the freedoms and liberty guaranteed and protected by the Constitution; as the saying goes, use it or lose it.

Let the CIA Make Mistakes

Bravo to David Ignatius and his article, “Bogged In Bureaucracy”. The key point in my mind was his point that the recent break downs in intelligence is a result of, “ intelligent managers (who) are eager for results but worried about risks.” With the Obama Administration, there was also a change in management philosophy; that mistakes will not be tolerated. As Ignatius pointed out, this leads to the reticence of CIA officers “to take responsibility for problem solving, rather than kicking them down to the next guy in line”. As a leader, you can either foster an atmosphere of blame laying and punishment, or “initiative and accountability”; the two are mutually exclusive. The reason is simple, people make mistakes; even very dedicated and experienced people make mistakes. Management can decided to either determine the cause of the mistake and attempt to fix it, or track down the person who made the mistake and punish them. If a CIA officer works in an atmosphere of blame laying and punishment, then they will not take responsibility for anything. In a blame laying culture, mistakes are not dealt with, they are covered up. To foster a culture of initiative and accountability, the CIA leadership must be prepared to protect their officers and create an atmosphere of trust. Only then, will officers put themselves on the line and take the chances that are necessary for exceptionalism; without risk taking, the result will always be mediocrity. The Yeman bomber was identified as a terrorist threat and put on a list, but not the “No Fly” list. This is because some bureaucrat decided that if the No Fly list exceeds 4000 names, it would be a violation of someones civil rights. Since the list is a zero-sum, a name must be removed from the list, before a name can be added and the only way a name can be removed from the list, is for the agency that placed the name on the list to take it off. The names for the No Fly list are chosen from a larger database called TIDE, that has 500,000 names and counting; the system is simply collapsing under it's own weight. What is needed is simple; any CIA agent should have the ability to recommend a name be immediately added to the No-Fly list. It should also be assumed by the intelligence agencies, that most of these expedited names will be subsequently removed, but the intelligence agencies need to be able to trust it's agents and not be afraid of pointing out the wrong person or generating a complaint. How do I know this will work? Well, it's what has been working in Israel for decades. It requires strong leadership and a high degree of trust in police officers and intelligence agents. It's a fix now, train later mentality instead of the finger-pointing, “it wasn't me”, culture we live to today; much to our detriment.

The Fascism of Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi continues to show herself as one of the most condescending and hypocritical members of Congress to date. The current Speaker of the House and the first woman to hold this position has continued to show time after time, her belief that the American taxpayer is incapable of independent thought. Any disagreement by a group of Americans against the policies of Nancy Pelosi has been met with allegations that the unwashed masses don't know what's good for them and as Bill Maher once said about Single Payer Health Care; “You can't get Americans to agree on anything. Sixty-percent? Sixty-percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country. He just needs to drag them to it. Like I just said, they're stupid. Just drag them to this." When confronted with mounting resistance to ObamaCare, she referred to the protests at the Town Hall Meetings as Astroturf, meaning;

"those not interested in health insurance reform are disrupting public meetings and not allowing concerned constituents to ask questions and express their views. Many of these opponents who are shutting down civil discussion are organized by out-of-district, extremist political groups, and industry-supported lobbying firms." However in the same breath she says, “Successful, informative constituent meetings are being headlined by Democrats across the country.”

One is left with two possibilities; either she simply can not believe that anyone can see significant flaws in the workings of the Democrats in Congress, or she believes that any disagreements by her constituency is beneath her; the later would seem more likely. This of course is nothing new. Whenever Speaker Pelosi's rhetoric runs contrary to fact or reality, she simply states the absurd and presents it as fact. Such was her seemingly incompatible views on abortion rights and her professed Catholicism. Speaker Pelosi, in an interview with Tom Brokaw was asked “when” her faith believes life begins; her response was “I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition.” When Brokaw brought to her attention that it is common knowledge that the Catholic church believes life starts at conception, she compounded her hypocrisy in the area, by saying, “I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the Church, this is an issue of controversy.” The responses from Catholics reached Pope Benedict himself, who stated after a hearing with Ms Pelosi, that all Catholics—especially legislators, jurists and political leaders—should work to create "a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development." Pope Benedict has written at length that the greatest threat to Catholicism in the United States is “Relativism”, meaning Catholics who choose only that part of their faith that is convenient or fits their world view; apparently he was thinking of Speaker Pelosi at the time.

In her acceptance speech as speaker, Ms Pelosi stated, "In order to achieve a new America, we must return this House to the American people. So our first order of business is passing the toughest ethics reform in history. This new Congress doesn't have two years or 100 days to renew itself”. It is interesting to note after almost two years, and numerous ethics violation, not one member of the house has been disciplined. The glaring example is Rep Charles Rangel. Rep Rangel is Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee; the committee that writes the tax code. The New York Post reported that he had bought a Caribbean Villa with an interest free loan given to him by one of his political donors. He then failed to report the loan and income from renting the Villa ($75,000), not only on his congressional disclosure forms, but also on his state or federal income taxes. Interestingly enough, Rep Rangel called for his own investigation on this and other violations, but Speaker Pelosi has refused to have him step down from his post, nor has Rep Rangel been disciplined in any way.

Speaker Pelosi was also become a critic of the coercive interrogation techniques used on terrorists. Speaker Pelosi gives a Clintonize ( I did not have sexual relations with that woman) explanation on what when she wasn't briefed:

When my assistant told me that the committee had been briefed -- now, I'm not on that committee any more. I'm now out of it. We have a new -- that ranking member wrote the appropriate letter to protest that, but the committees can look into and see the timing of who knew what and when and what the nature of the briefing was. I have not been briefed as to what they were briefed on in February. I was just briefed that they were informed that some of the enhanced situations were used”.

So for political reasons, Speaker Pelosi is throwing the CIA members who protected us after 911 under the bus. Did they go too far? Probably. Should we have invaded Iraq? Probably not. Was Speaker (then Rep) Pelosi, as a high ranking member of the House Intelligent Committee September 2002), briefed in coercive interrogation techniques? Of course. Is Speaker Pelosi misleading Americans and then recklessly charging the CIA with deliberate misconduct to cover her tracks (as factcheck.org asks)? What do you think?

Speaker Pelosi was represented the Cap and Trade Bill as a jobs bill. Cap and Trade is a tax based on the belief the human produced carbon dioxide causes Global Warming (aka the Green House Effect). While there is no doubt of the existence of Green House Effect, the last decade has thrown a monkey wrench in the computer models that were meant to predict an expedited increase in the Green House Effect caused by rising C02 levels, refereed to as Global Warming. Twenty years ago, earth temperatures were indeed warming and there was increased pressure on Climatologist to prove the connection between C02 levels Global Warming. Unfortunately for the scientist, temperatures have actually decreased on the last 10 years, causing the political pundits to change the name, Global Warming to Climate Change. The current computer models have been able to show that any and all climate conditions are the negative results of rising C02 levels; this is the definition of dogma, not science.

Well what about the jobs? Ed Histrodt; from TheNewAmerican.com;

You may have seen Nancy Pelosi jumping up and down like a junior high-school cheerleader and shouting “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” when she promoted Cap and Trade on the House floor. Wasn’t the bill about saving the planet, not a jobs bill?

It’s more likely that “green jobs” refers to new jobs in the massive bureaucracies necessary to issue emission allocations and police the energy used by all American businesses, and, doubtlessly soon, American households. (The equipment is already in limited use in the U.K. to monitor household electrical usage.) The Energy Police would not only have to monitor use, but also ascertain that the credits being sold were from bona fide “renewable” sources or determine that the originator wasn’t really cheating on that end of the transaction — a daunting task even for a massive bureaucracy".

From an article by Speaker Pelosi, "I believe we have to [pass a cap-and-trade bill] because we see that as a source of revenue," she said, noting that “proposed cap-and-trade bills would raise billions of dollars by forcing major emitters to buy credits to release greenhouse gases”.

President Obama has said that Cap and Trade will necessarily make gasoline prices “skyrocket”. What Cap and Trade does is allow the government to tax anything that produces carbon dioxide, such a breathing. None of the green jobs promised exist or are even on the drawing board. The point of Cap and Trade, is to make our current use of resources so expensive, that it is expected that innovation will supply the option. No matter the endgame, is the government that will tax and control the means of production.

Dr Steve Runnings, is a co-author of the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and founder of the Climate Change Studies program at the University of Montana. Dr Runnings has stated, “If the US passed a cap and trade and other countries did not, it wouldn’t work. It would ruin the US economy and it wouldn’t save the climate either. So this is a global issue, the global climate statistics are global in nature, global carbon emissions are global in nature, and we really have to have an international consensus of what to do. That is going to stretch our international diplomacy to its limit, there’s no doubt about that.” That's right Speaker Pelosi, it's all about, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”

If there is a final chapter in the emergence of fascism in American it would be the Democratic health care reform debate. The President was attacked every aspect of the current healthcare industry to try and convince the American people that the only solution is a government controlled Single Payer Plan; being presented now as a Public Option or ObamaCare. The President has said that doctors would rather cut off patients feet than treat Diabetes, that private health care 's mission is to take your money and deny services, and charged the big drug companies have successfully lobbied to eliminate drug price bargaining (Pres Obama has since made a deal with big pharmaceutical; they help fund OmabaCare with $80 billion and he will end Medicare (and Obamacare) drug bargaining. The plan on it's face makes no sense; it will still leave 30 million uninsured, with no contingent plan for 20 million illegal aliens; the first five years will be paid for by money saved over the previous 10 years; and 50% of the program will be funded by cutting $500 billion from Medicare, without cutting Medicare coverage (we already know drug prices are going to go up).

Speaker Pelosi has been front and center with her support for a public health plan and believes that if any American Tax payer does not share her support for the public option, they are weak minded and have been led astray by talk radio and FOX News. Speaker Pelois is so condescending that she believes all that is necessary is to change the name of the “Pubic Option” to the “Consumer Option”, than all the resistance to the Public Option would disappear. In the same speech, she said she wanted people to think about it as "their consumer option, because public is being misrepresented as being something that's paid for by taxpayer dollars, which it is not'' and that health reform would “actually improve Medicare coverage for seniors.” Apparently the Speaker has been on the public dole for so long, that she has forgotten that every cent that the government uses is paid for by taxpayers. Of course, a month ½ earlier she said, “Half the bill will be paid for by squeezing excesses out of the [Medicare and Medicaid] system, and there is $500 billion dollars to do that and we’re looking for more.” Only a politician with lifetime private health insurance paid by the government could make such claims. This of course comes after plans of taxing existing private health care plans and a value added tax (a federal income tax).

What is known is that most of the Public Health care promises are smoke and mirrors. From an article by Robert Samuelson; “Public Plan: Delusion in Health Care Debate”:

“The public plan's low costs would be artificial. Its main advantage would be the congressionally mandated requirement that hospitals and doctors be reimbursed at rates at or near Medicare's. These are as much as 30 percent lower than rates paid by private insurers, says the health care consulting firm Lewin Group. With such savings, the public plan could charge much lower premiums and attract lots of customers. But health costs wouldn't subside; hospitals and doctors would offset the public plan's artificially low reimbursements by raising fees to private insurers, as already occurs with Medicare. Premiums would increase because private insurers must cover costs to survive.

As for administrative expenses, any advantage for the public plan is exaggerated, say critics. Part of the gap between private insurers and Medicare is statistical illusion: Because Medicare recipients have higher average health expenses ($10,003 in 2007) than the under-65 population ($3,946), its administrative costs are a smaller share of total spending. The public plan, with younger members, wouldn't enjoy this advantage.”

In other words the Medicare overhead advantage (3%) over private insurers (13%) is obtained by comparing apples to oranges; the public plan will likely have a similar overhead as the private insures of today. Finally:

The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more "choice" and "competition") to expand government power. But why would a plan tied to Medicare control health spending, when Medicare hasn't? From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers - and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting. Congress periodically improves Medicare benefits, and there's a limit to how much squeezing reimbursement rates can check costs. Doctors and hospitals already complain that low payments limit services or discourage physicians from taking Medicare patients.

The only way we have to estimate the future cost of health care in the past; and the past shows the so called skyrocketing health care costs rose similarly with Medicare. Samuelson went on to say the reason Medicare can keep it's cost down, is they can mandate low reimbursement rates; without which, “the public plan would founder”. And an advantage not given to private insurers.

Perhaps the greatest indicator of fascism is the size of the lie. Speaker Pelosi and Pres Obama seem to have no respect for the American citizen. In their world view, individual freedom and liberty must make way for collectivism; that the needs of the many now supersede the needs of the individual. When faced with the moral values of her religion, she defers to as a need of the state. When faced with the needs of the free market, she points to nationalizing the means of production as a need of the state. When faced with capitalism and the free market, they point to re-distribution of wealth as a need of the state. This has all been tried before; it is the fascism playbook, word for word, and it has never been successful and always resulted in tyranny. But their unending narcissism makes them believe that this time they'll get it right. They praise the ideas of Marx, and Mao, and now Chavez and Castro. Hopefully the American people will not forget what it is that makes America great. It's not hard, because it is written in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Our founding fathers battled tyranny and created the greatest country that has ever been. Let's not return the country to tyranny, because, the day will come when we'll want liberty again, and history has shown that only through the loss of life and limb can liberty be gained. It would be tragedy of unimaginable sacrifice, the sacrifices of our forefathers, that will be needed again.

On the Road to Fascism

Capitalism is recognized as the most robust economic plan known to mankind. The concept of “supply and demand” tied to consumerism, has shown the greatest opportunity for economic growth the world has ever seen. But like all things, it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness. The driving force behind free market capitalism is supply and demand, but what keeps it healthy is competition. Competition creates innovation, keeps costs in check and greases the skids of capitalism. Unfortunately the history of capitalism is fraught with those who would continually manipulate the free market by trying to eliminate competition. John D Rockefeller is famous for saying, "Competition is a sin". Eliminate competition and you inhibit innovation, but you vastly increase profits. The counter to this are anti-trust laws, but they have often proven to be too little and too late. By the time the anti-trust laws have kicked in, the damage has usually been done.

The other weakness is a complete lack of accountability in the financial markets. As mentioned before, the stock market was meant to be a place were companies could fund themselves by selling a proportion of themselves and their profits. The weakness here is what is referred to as a bubble. A bubble is formed when there is too big a gap between what a stock is worth and the amount a company had previously sold it's stock; this is refereed to as the primary and secondary market. This occurred in the 90s with dot com or NASDAQ bubble. Here the perceived value of start-up Internet companies was so high, that when a correction occurred (the secondary market fell and the bubble burst), most investors lost most or all the money they invested.

Additionally, there is the futures market, which was designed as an insurance policy. If the truth be known, farmers rarely know what the value of their crops or livestock will be when they finally come to market. The idea of futures, was for the farmer to find a buyer for their product at a reasonable profit. Say you buy corn or pork bellies, at an agreed upon price; this is the price the farmer will sell their product. If by the time the corn or pork bellies are sold, and the value is greater than the agreed to price, then you make a profit; if it is lower you loose money, but more important the farmers always have enough money to stay in business.

Mix Investment Banking and Futures and you have derivatives. A derivative is a formula to determine the value of a stock or better what is referred to as a Financial Instrument. The most common derivative is an interest swap. An interest swap occurs when you, Startup Company “A” needs a loan to expand. Currently the interest rate is 5%. Since you are a Startup company, the bank will not give you a long term loan and you know if the interest rate rises over 10% you will not be able to make the payments. Enter Corp B. Corporation B has been around a long time and it looking to invest some profits. Here an investment bank will set up a swap guaranteeing Startup A a year long 8% loan. Startup A will negotiated it's 5% short term loan, and as long as the loan percentage is at 8% or less, Startup A will pay Corp B, the difference between 8% and the current interest. If the interest rate goes above 8% then Corp B will have to pay Startup A the difference. While this kind of derivative can be beneficial to both sides.

Unfortunately these unregulated derivatives can have drastic consequences for the country if they are abused; I am referring to what was known as the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. The idea was all someone had to do was buy or “get into a home”, and the increasing value would allow the owner, regardless of their current ability to pay, an investment that they could re-finance until they could afford the house. Congress pressured the banks to make these home loans and agreed to buy most of the mortgages, so the banks would continue to have money to make more loans. The government then sold these mortgages to Investment Bankers and they in turn created Mortgage Backed Derivatives as high yield investments. Unfortunately, the derivative formulas would not work if the housing market dipped or started to lose money. Once that happened, Mortgage Backed Derivatives could not be valued, the Investment banks could no longer buy mortgages from Fannie and Freddie and the Banks ran out of money; that popping sound was another bubble bursting.

The problem was no accountability. The driving force that started this economic catastrophe was congress and the American Dream Commitment Act. Even though there were many warnings and attempts to rein in the problem, neither the Republicans or the Democrats wanted to turn off the money spigot and tell poor people they could not buy a house. To make matters worse, the Investment Banks sold unregulated Insurances policies on the Mortgage Backed Derivatives, called Credit Default Swaps (yes they are also a form of derivative). Because the Mortgage Backed Derivatives lost value, Credit Default Swaps kicked in and most of largest Investment Banks would have gone bankrupt (and some did) had congress not bailed them out with hundreds of billions of dollars. Interestingly enough, the regulations and accountability to stop this from happening (The Glass Stegal Act) had been in place for over 90 years. Glass Stegal was repealed in 1999 and it took congress and Wall Street only 10 years to repeat most the mistakes that led up to the panic of 1907 and the crash of 1929. Now this is not to say these same mistakes absolutely would not have occurred under fascism. A fascist dictator would most likely encourage inward economic growth tied to home ownership. However, fascism has also showed itself to be highly suspicious of banking and there would be no allowance in fascism for individuals to profit more than the state. The amount of paranoia and accountability, along with a lack of a free market, would have made the sub-prime meltdown almost impossible in a fascist state. Further fascism would almost eliminate the secondary market, as it is not easily controlled, which would put an end to the investment bubbles that have been like a wrecking ball to your average investor.

Of course, all this assumes that the fascist leaders have the state's best interest at heart. As mentioned earlier fascism usually rears it's head during economic down times. However, there is very little evidence that fascism can sustained. Fascism relies much on nationalism. Alexander Tyler wrote that democracy goes through 8 stages;

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.

If this is to be believed, fascism usually intervenes in the “bondage to spiritual faith” stage and sticks around through the turbulent “spiritual faith to great courage” nationalistic stage. However once liberty raises it's head, fascism begins to loose it allure; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those who are in power are not likely to relinquish their power, just because the people now want more freedom. Usually what you will see are manufactured crisis. As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Manufactured crisis are designed to keep the citizenry off balance and in need of the government to protect them. Emanuel continued his crisis statement with, "what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn't think you could do before". Lets hope that one of these "things", do not have the unintended consequence of fascism.